In March this year, Yang Yongliang spent time in Dunedin as part of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery's International Visiting Artist programme. Artificial Wonderland includes Yang's most recent video series, 'Views of Water', constructed from footage of the ocean, rivers and lakes shot during his time in New Zealand. Through photography and video, Artificial Wonderland creates a space to examine urbanisation, globalisation and the contemporary relationship to the landscape. Taking their reference point from the works of Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan (c. 1160 - 1225), Yang's compositions present a view of the environment that is both timeless whilst firmly located in the present.

VISIT

Jemima Wyman's Domestic Rage (detail), 2017, is included in Testament, an exhibition revealing the dynamic uptake of textiles in Australia's contemporary art practise. Building on the gallery's comprehensive collection of post-minimalist and craft-based textile fibre art from the 1970s and 1980s, these more recent acquisitions showcase new and unexpected approaches to the use of textiles as part of challenging the hierarchy of materials by contemporary artists.

FINAL WEEKEND

The Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award seeks the innovation in contemporary drawing in Australia, its aesthetic freedoms and ability to crystallise a nascent idea. It platforms the central importance of drawing, as an endeavour in its own right as well as in the further development of artworks and it celebrates the significant freedom brought to contemporary drawing.

ATTEND

For the 2019 Perth festival, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran and Renee So will present a joint exhibition which reimagines idolatry and mythological archetypes. Working primarily in figurative ceramics, both artists aim to challenge and overturn old perspectives on gender, gendered power structures and the aesthetics of spiritualities.

CHECK OUT

Obsession: Devil in the detail examines our fascination with the meticulous and micro, the real and the hyperreal and brings together a range of historical and contemporary works under three broad themes of still life, portraiture and landscape.

LISTEN

07/12/2018

BADEN PAILTHORPEThe DataPodcast from The Constellations series by DLUXMEDIAARTS

Recorded on 22 November 2018, in this podcast Baden Pailthorpe and Aaron Coutts discuss their collaboration for 'Clanger', originally exhibited at UTS Gallery earlier this year. Exploring the aesthetics of data and technology, 'Clanger' pairs statistical tracking data of AFL player performance with the emotional intensities of the crowd to create 3D virtual artworks.

NOW SHOWING

The second edition of South/East Interference brings together a diverse group of mid-career artists working around themes of personal identity and redefining and re-imagining cultural heritage and storytelling.

INVITATION

Tony Clark's Design for a Chinoiserie Landscape is an extension of a continuous project begun over thirty years ago which explores the spaces between the decorative arts, fine art and design. For Clark, an Australian-born artist living between Australia and Europe, Chinoiserie - a popular decorative style in 19th century Western art characterised by the use of Chinese motifs and techniques - presents a way of considering the multifaceted socio-cultural identity of the Asia-Pacific region. Painted in a restricted four-colour palette of blue, rose pink, sienna and black, and combining both chinoiserie and classical motifs, these new works reference decorative textiles and mosaics, alluding to their use as designs for the interior decoration of a notional building, Villa Sino-Romana, a conceit which underlies the entire series.

Clark's interest in design, the notion of a painting alluding to something other than itself, is fundamental to his artistic practice. This conceptual framework, as opposed to coming from a position of 'pure' painting - an area Clark has operated in over the course of more than thirty years - is used to explore the possibilities of the decorative in the context of fine art. Breaking down these distinctions, Clark's Design for a Chinoiserie Landscape asks where the line is drawn; both between art and design, and in a broader sense between co-existing socio-cultural identities.

INVITATION

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present Polymorph, an exhibition of new work by Polly Borland. Continuing Borland's exploration of the possibilities of abstraction and the surreal, the Morph and Polymorph series of photographs combine anthropomorphic soft-sculpture with abstracted portraiture. An exciting advance in Borland's practice, these new works present the human form in surprising and unfamiliar ways. At once tender and troubling, they are poignantly human and pointedly not; an amalgam of humour, the uncanny and a disquieting uneasiness.

Accompanying these works will be five portraits of Borland by five invited artists: Emma Borland, Tony Clark, Eliza Hutchinson, Elizabeth Newman, Constance Zikos and Christina Zimpel. Underscoring the ideas of distortion and transformation explored in the Morph series, Borland asked each artist to respond to the portrait invitation in any way they wished, in terms of size, medium and style, creating five images across which the artist's face is repeatedly recast and reinterpreted.

Polymorph coincides with Borland's major survey show at the National Gallery of Victoria and the publication of a new book of Borland's images from the series which is published by Perimeter Editions.

INVITATION

"It often strikes me," says Ng "that when someone says they miss something, they ordinarily allude to a person, time of place; when what they truly miss is a version of themselves, which they can never get back again. after all, what is each of us, but a vessel of vanishing selves?"

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present an exhibition by Singapore-based Dawn Ng. A collection of 26 texts distilled from a year-long Q&A project between Ng and a correspondent previously unknown to her, Perfect Stranger draws from their daily ritual as well as Ng's ongoing study of colour, emotion, nostalgia and times, to form an autobiographic aide-memoir.

Perfect Stranger is a collection of text-images which form part of a year-long narrative portrait that began on 1 June 2016. Each sheet emits a phosphorescence arising from a synthesis of shades that is unique to, and reflective of, its story. It is a fossilized, fleeting exchange shared by two women from different pasts, presents and futures. Over time, this process of inquisition and disclosure unveils an intimate tapestry of fact and fiction, spanning recollections, observations, questions, lists, stories, poems, confessions and jokes, Perfect Stranger is an experiment in freezing moments of oneself over time.

UP NEXT

CONGRATULATIONS

09/11/2018

LINDY LEEChinatown, New York City

Congratulations to Lindy Lee who has collaborated with UAP and New York-based architects, Levenbetts, to win an international design competition which will see her create an iconic gateway work for New York's Chinatown district.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Tony Albert whose work, Warakurna Superheroes #5 (2017), a collaborative work made with David C Collins and Kieran Smythe-Jackson, has been acquired by HOTA, Brisbane, via the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award. The exhibition of finalists is on display at HOTA until 25 November 2018.

GO SEE

09/11/2018

FX HARSONOMoving Pledges: Art & Action in Southeast AsiaInstitute of Contemporary Arts SingaporeLASALLE College of the ArtsUntil 23 January 2019

FX Harsono is included in Moving Pledges: Art & Action in Southeast Asia. Curated by Iola Lenzi, the exhibition presents works by Southeast Asian artists who use art as a means to probe social and political power structures. FX Harsono presents his pistol-shaped rice cracker installation, 'Apa yang anda lakukan jika krupuk ini adalah pistol beneran? (What would you do if these crackers were real pistols?)', 1977, one of the region's earliest participatory artworks.

OPENING THIS SUNDAY

09/11/2018

Weapons For The SoldierHazelhurst Arts Centre11 November 2018 - 3 February 2019

Opens this Sunday, 11 November 2018

Tony Albert, Richard Lewer and Alex Seton are included in Weapons For The Soldier, a groundbreaking exhibition initiated by the young men of the APY Lands, bringing together indigenous and non-indigenous Australian artists to examine complex themes of weaponry, warfare and protecting land and country. The exhibition explores themes related to Fighting for Country and deep connection to Country, evocative of both the broader tenets of the ANZAC legacy as well as the district position of Indigenous people within Australia who have long fought to maintain cultural strength and pride.

CLOSING SOON

ATTEND

09/11/2018

YANG YONGLIANGsalt 14Utah Museum of Fine Art, USAUntil 12 June 2019

Yang Yongliang is the fourteenth artist in the UMFA's salt series of contemporary art. This ongoing program of exhibitions showcases work by emerging artists from around the world. salt aims to reflect the impact of contemporary art, forging connections to the global and bringing new and diverse artwork to the city that shares the program's name. The salt series is made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

CHECK OUT

Liam O'Brien is included in The TV Show at Wollongong Art Gallery which draws together a diverse group of early career artists whose works are immersed in the image-soup of contemporary life. The TV Showreflects on the shifting role television plays in a digital age. Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham.

CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to Angela Tiatia who was announced as the recipient of the 2018 Creative New Zealand Contemporary Pacific Artist Award. The award recognises an artist who has demonstrated innovation, who has continually pushed the boundaries of their practice, and who has achieved excellence in their field.

VISIT

Karen Black is included in Beyond Reason, an exhibition of works that venture into the fairytale, the absurd, masquerade, animal/human transformation, theatre, satire, anti-fashion and parody. Beyond Reason exudes whimsy, improvisation, spontaneity, humour, gesture and intuition whilst exploring ideas of cultural identity, popular culture and sexuality.

ATTEND

Craftivism, Dissident Objects & Subversive Forms presents the work of 18 contemporary Australian artists who utilise craft based materialities with a political intent/ Broadening our understanding of craft-making traditions, the artists in this exhibition subvert and extend these forms into the realm of activism and social change, reflecting on the world in which we live.

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to participate in this year's edition of ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, with a presentation of works by Irfan Hendrian (ID), Lindy Lee (AU) and Alex Seton (AU).

Irfan Hendrian’s sculptures are informed by Bauhaus principles and created from layers of accumulated single sheets of coloured paper. Through a long and painstaking process, Irfan bonds together innumerable interconnected sheets of paper to form solid but composite objects that are at once delicate, intricate and rigidly compacted. Red Brick Wall (2018) is a solid 60 cm high wall of paper – a collage of myriad coloured sheets, reduced to a recognisable quotidian pattern, reflecting Hendrian’s interest in the Bauhaus tendency for simplification. An inherently abstract action, collage provides a methodology that maintains Hendrian's purist approach to materials, a methodology which in his work, underscores the flawed nature of representation. Ideological and innately restrictive, Hendrian’s work asserts that the meaning of any given representation is never definitive, as the gap between intention and realisation, original and copy, can never be bridged.

These notions of accumulation and inclusivity are also examined in Lindy Lee’s practice which explores her Chinese ancestry through Taosim and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhim. As Lee has said “we are all part of this thing; it is intrinsic to us and we are intrinsic to it.” For ART021 Shanghai, her presentation will include Listening to the Moon, a large mirror-polished stainless-steel sphere and three new large-scale works on paper in which the artist uses Chinese ink and fire to rework giclée prints of traditional Chinese figurative paintings. In, The Exile Awakens (2018) Lee incorporates circular patterns of burnt paper into an image of a single female figure dressed in Chinese traditional costume emerging from a darkened doorway. Collectively, these works consider the cosmic forces at work within the universe and within ourselves; the ever-changing duality of presence and absence. These two capabilities are represented by paper and fire, light and dark, pillars of Lee’s work, which act as both the medium and subject.

Alex Seton often incorporates clothing and fabric in his practice to speak to the body and how it participates in the economic, geographic and social systems that structure our world. Seton’s presentation for Shanghai will include a series of marble carvings in the form of folded or draped cloth and clothing. The complexities of each draped piece of fabric are also a nod to the tropes of classical statuary; the shrouds, drapes and folds of cloth of European marble tradition. In, Destroy the Past, Slow the Future (2018), Seton employs this historical lens to consider the environmental, cultural and economic impact of systems of clothing manufacture on those that bear the burden of our dispensation. From the ubiquitous hoodie politicised by the shooting of Trayvon Martin, to makeshift refugee shelters and discarded life jackets, cloth serves as a humble reminder of the deep and messy entanglement of the personal and political.

INVITATION

"For me it's the scale which envelops the viewer; the whole nebula of colour, the ocean of colour, which soaks you in." - Sydney Ball, 2014

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present an exhibition by the major Australian abstract artist, Sydney Ball (1933 - 2017), the first exhibition of the artist's work since his passing. The exhibition of Australia's greatest colourist had been planned during Ball's lifetime to mark what would have been the artist's 85th birthday. Infinex V will present large-scale works from Ball's Infinex series, his final and never before seen body of work.

Unexhibited during Ball's lifetime, the Infinex V series was produced by Ball as a series of large-scale compositions. Fabricated by Urban Art Projects (UAP), the series has been realised according to the artist's exacting instructions in automotive enamel on aluminium, a method of manufacturing he devised out of physical necessity in his 80s. As a way of honouring Ball's working process, the exhibition presents both the finalised large-scale works on aluminium, a number of which have been realised posthumously, alongside a small series of intimate works on paper from 2013 which have never before been exhibited.

Comprising rigid geometric forms articulated in fields of contrasting colour, the Infinex V series are crisply chromatic formal assemblages of individual but related planes of colour, which appear as if poised mid-motion. The mechanical process of their construction, which establishes a perfect surface finish - and belies the frailty of Ball's condition at the time - associates these works with Ball's important Modular series completed in collaboration with automotive painters in the 1960s. Black Reveal (1968-1969) from this period was seen by Sydney audiences this year in the 21st Biennale of Sydney. As Terence Maloon has described them, the Infinex series relates to the "immense outflowing of joie de vivre" in the late works of many great artists such as Monet's waterlilies or Matisse's cut-outs.

Sydney Ball was a pioneer in the field of painting and the development of abstraction in Australia and arguably Australia's greatest colourist. Nationally and internationally renowned for his bold use of colour, form and compositional structure, Ball lived and worked in New York during the 1960s and 1970s. His work is typified by its vibrancy of colour - from the colours-field abstraction of his 1960s Modular series to the more recent Infinex series which began in 2010 - and his painterly abstractions of the 1970s. Throughout each period of development, Ball maintained an obsessions with form, colour and light. The Infinex series of works represent the pinnacle of this lifelong research.

Seats are strictly limited and admission includes post-concert reception. For more information and to book your tickets, please click here.

Join us on Sunday, 4 November 2018, for a special concert in celebration of Sydney Ball featuring The Sydney Art Quartet. Music was central to Ball's artistic practice, and the soundtrack to his creative life. Planned in consultation with fellow artist Lynne Eastaway, this concert features The Sydney Art Quartet performing works specially selected from Ball's collection of favourites including Beethoven, Haydn and Schubert. The Sydney Art Quartet is a virtuosic string quartet that works in collaboration with other art forms Founded by James Beck in 2015, the SAQ gives electrifying performances that playfully sidestep the routine and the predictable.

CONGRATULATIONS

19/10/2018

TIM SILVERWinner of the 2018 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize

Sullivan+Strumpf is proud to announce that Tim Silver is the recipient of the 2018 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize for his work, Untitled (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 02). Silver's work is now on display in an exhibition of the prize finalists at Woollahra council chambers until 11 November, which also includes works by prize finalists Karen Black and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran who was awarded The Special Commendation.

Established in 2001, the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize attracts strong support from artists, collectors and critics and is the first national acquisitive prize for an original, freestanding sculpture of up to 80cm in any dimension, and is worth AUD$20,000. This year's prize was judged by Amanda Love and Michael Lynch AO CBE.

GO SEE

14/10/2018

FX HARSONOMoving Pledges: Art & Action in Southeast AsiaInstitute of Contemporary ArtsLASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore20 October 2018 - 23 January 2019

Guest curator: Iola Lenzi

FX Harsono is included in Moving Pledges, an exhibition presenting works by Southeast Asian artists who use art as a means to probe social and political power structures. The exhibition comprises participatory and performance art, photography, video and installation. Works employ aesthetics and conceptual frameworks—sometimes borrowed from the state—to prompt discussion about the systems of authority that regulate daily life. Produced over four decades (1977–2018), the works show the artists’ persistent belief in art as a conduit for social and political empowerment. FX Harsono presents his pistol-shaped rice cracker installation (1977), one of the region’s earliest participatory artworks.

OPENING TOMORROW

R@MESH Volume II is an expansion of the bold proclamations of Nithiyendran's institutional shows which have since evoled into a self-reflexive investigation of relationships and power, holding a mirror to the world at odds. Traces of Nithiyendran's personality are embedded, as sartorial flamboyance, but also as self-mockery. Self-portraiture, according to the artist, is a theme that runs through all his work, toeing the line between narcissism and self-parody. Playing along with the idea of the artist as a brand in today's age of screen culture, Nithiyendran's laughter is truly contagious.

UP NEXT

"For me it's the scale which envelops the viewer; that whole nebula of colour, the ocean of colour, which just soaks you in." - Sydney Ball, 2014.

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to present an exhibition by major Australian abstract artist, Sydney Ball (1933 - 2017), the first exhibition of the artist's work since his passing. Planned during Bali's lifetime to mark what would have been the artist's 85th birthday, the exhibition will present large-scale works from Bali's last Infinex series, his final and never-before-seen body of work.

Comprising rigid geometric forms articulated in fields of contrasting colours, as Terence Maloon has written, the Infinex series relates to the "immense outflowing of joie de vivre" in the late works of many great artists, such as Monet's waterlilies or Matisse's cut-outs.

ATTEND

Coinciding with Infinex V joins us for The Beloved Colour, a concert by Sydney Art Quartet in celebration of what would have been Sydney Ball's 85th birthday. Planned in conjunction with Lynne Eastaway, this concert features The Sydney Art Quartet performing works specially chosen from Ball's collection of favourites including Beethoven, Hadyn and Schubert. Seats are strictly limited. Admission includes post-concert reception.

ON VIEW NOW

Polly Borland's Polyverse, an exhibition of new and recent works by the celebrated Australian artist, is now open at the National Gallery of Victoria. Born in Melbourne and now living in Low Angeles, Borland is known for her photographs of iconic subjects including Queen Elizabeth II, Nick Cave and Gwendoline Christie. Her more recent practice explores the possibilities of abstraction and the surreal, in images which present the human form in surprising and unfamiliar ways; an amalgamation of humour, the uncanny and a disquieting uneasiness. The NGV exhibition includes works from Borland's important 'Monster', 'Bunny' and 'Smudge' series, in addition to a previously un-exhibited body of work which will form part of Polymorph, her solo exhibition with S+S this November.

DON'T MISS

Irfan Hendrian is included in the group exhibition SSAS/AS/IDEAS at Bale Tonggoh, the youngest of all the exhibition spaces at Indonesia's Selasar Sunaryo Art Space. Taking as its starting point the notion of visual economics, the exhibition celebrates 20 years of SSAS bringing together 20 artists working within the scope of abstraction.

CHECK OUT

Wayfinders is part of the Oceania Rising project, a collaboration with the Australian Museum and Blacktown Arts Centre that responds to the impacts of Climate Change (Global Warming) in the Oceania region. Artists taking part in the Casula Powerhouse exhibition respond to way finders - past, present and future - who have navigated human impacts on their homelands.

ON VIEW IN LA

For At The Fray, Wyman develops a civilian psychological neo-camouflage for future conflicts, steeped in motifs and images selected from her ongoing MAS_archive of clothing and costuming of masked protestors from around the world. Wyman focuses on DIY painterly effects applied by street protestors to buildings, banners, signs, clothing, and masks - a multifaceted social text inscribed at the intersection of ad-hoc deployment and a peculiarly talismanic imagery meant to ward off evil.

ATTEND

An evolving installation by Hiromi Tango and Craig Walsh. A Forcerepresents a new temporal public artwork by this award-winning collaborative team. A site-specific installation responsive to a range of environmental forces including audience participation and contribution. A Force will grow throughout the duration of the exhibition through public participationand develop in response to the unique environment it lives within. A Force considers our relationship with technology, and how our daily dependence on digital devices may be affecting us. Wires and cables are lifelines in many ways, but as we manipulate them with our hands, taking time together to create, we begin to transform our relationship with technology.

WATCH

Directed by Kate Blackmore of artist collective Barbara Cleveland and produced by Bethany Bruce, Video Becomes Us profiles the work of Australia's most exciting artists, including Angela Tiatia and Darren Sylvester, exploring how artists use video as a means of artistic expression and political agitation.

ANNOUNCEMENT

12/10/2018

KAREN BLACK2018 Artbank + QPAC Commission

Karen Black has been announced as the recipient of this year's Artbank + QPAC Commission. Karen's proposal will see her create a large-scale work on paper inspired by the tragedies, dramas, passions and grand trickeries of opera. The work being commissioned is titled 'I gaze at you, I possess you', translated from the final love duet in Montiverdi's 'Coronation of Poppea' and will be unveiled at QPAC in late 2018.

ANNOUNCEMENT

12/10/2018

JOANNA LAMBBlack Swan State Theatre Company collaboration

Joanna Lamb has collaborated with Western Australia's Black Swan State Theatre Company for their 2019 season. Responding to the well-known phrase "Where the Heart Is", Joanna's series of seven works considers the notion of belonging and the meaning of "home".

COMING UP

Craftivism presents the work of 18 contemporary Australian artists who utilise craft-based materials with a political intent. Broadening our understanding of craft-making traditions, the artists in this exhibition subvert and extend these forms into the realm of activism and social change, reflecting on the world in which we live. Drawing on a long historical lineage, the exhibition enables viewers to rethink craft in a new light.

Tony Albert, Sanné Mestrom and Alex Seton are included in Contour 556 2018 which opens today in Canberra. Contour 556 is a free public art event over three weeks presenting artworks and performances by 60 artists in the world famous public realm and national cultural icons around Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra. It is unique in the field of public sculpture and performance events as it takes place in a consciously designed and culturally layered landscape, in one of only three designed capital cities.

Tony Albert's Exploring the new frontier is a vast installation of 109 individual works on paper installed at Commonwealth Place 'East Space'. Sanné Mestrom's sentinel-like, Sphinx in Repose (Kneeling) has been positioned on Commonwealth Avenue opposite Henry Rolland Park; and Alex Seton's towering Monument to No, provides a counterpoint to Canberra's grandiose public monuments, positioned alongside the central basin of Lake Burley Griffin.

The festival site is a place with deep cultural and heritage overlays. All artworks and performances are site specific, drawing inspiration from or reflecting on the cultural or physical character of Canberra. The sense of place of the Canberra lakeside landscape resonates with the artworks and performances. The connections to Canberra's history provoke a variety of responses from the public that embed a memory of place. The event reinforces the beauty of the designed landscape, and recognises landscapes hidden from view through design. It presents stories of Australia political, cultural and physical history. It includes stories from all Australians, from our past and our future.

R@MESH Volume II is an expansion of the bold proclamations of Nithiyendran's institutional shows which have since evolved into a self-reflexive investigation of relationships and power, holding a mirror to the world at odds. Traces of Nithiyendran's personality are embedded, as sartorial flamboyance, but also as self-mockery. Self-portraiture, according to the artist, is a theme that runs through all his work, toeing the line between narcissism and self-parody. Playing along with the idea of the artist as a brand in today's age of screen culture, Nithiyendran's laughter is truly contagious.

ATTEND

Polly Borland's Polyverse, an exhibition of new and recent works by the celebrated Australian artist opens tomorrow at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Born in Melbourne and now living in Los Angeles, Borland is known for her photographs of iconic subjects including Queen Elizabeth II, Nick Cave and Gwendoline Christie. Her more recent practice explores the possibilities of abstraction and the surreal, in images which present the human form in surprising and unfamiliar ways; an amalgam of humour, the uncanny and a disquieting uneasiness. The NGV exhibition includes works from Borland's important 'Monster', 'Bunny', and 'Smudge' series, in addition to a previously un-exhibited body of work which will form part of Polymorph - her solo exhibition with Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney in November.

The NGV exhibition will include 60 works spanning the last 10 years and reveal Borland's celebrated ability to render the body in alluring, enigmatic and surreal compositions, often inviting the view to see the human form in unfamiliar ways.

A new tapestry work of Borland's celebrated photograph of The Queen, taken for Her Majesty's Golden Jubilee in 2022, will be a highlight of the exhibition. Created in collaboration with Fine Cell Work, an English prisoner's advocacy organisation that trains prisoners to undertake paid, skilled needlework from their cells, this large-scale tapestry will be shown for the first time double-sided, allowing viewers to admire both the composition and highly skilled construction of the work.

In a mesmerising large-scale display, Borland will showcase a new series of large lenticular works, taking the illusive quality of her portraits to new, three-dimensional scales. Borland will also unveil a never-before-seen body of new work that has been created especially for the NGV exhibition.

"Borland shoots on film, taking many rolls to achieve the final images, and never altering the works in post-production. The works reveal Borland's finely crafted skill for capturing uncanny moments that stretch our understanding of the human body," said Tony Ellwood, Director of the NGV.

FINAL WEEKEND

We are pleased to announce that Reminiscence, a solo exhibition by seminal Indonesian artist FX Harsono, will be extended to Sunday, 30 September 2018.

"History also records the darker moments of loss and downfall. Oftentimes, the victims of persecution find it hard to share their pain with descendants, or discuss their history at all. Revealing the truth feels like reopening old wounds. The perpetrators of historical violence have a tendency to edit history; their actions are erased like flaws to be covered over. A great nation learns from the past. Acknowledging history, even when it's painful, will help future generations to avoid making the same mistakes; whereas, denying the past will allow history to repeat itself." - FX Harsono, 2018

INVITATION

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present Alex Seton's Cargo, an exhibition of new marble sculptures depicting highly compressed bales of clothing; of the kind found in the second-hand clothes industry. Each garment packed into these volumes has its own history and story to tell. Together, they evoke a tangled mass of humanity; the mesh of needs and concerns, environments and economies that connect us all.

Spanning both floors of Sullivan+Strumpf's Sydney gallery, Cargo includes six hand-carved bales of clothing. Over the last four years, Seton's work has responded to the asylum seeker debate and Australia's offshore immigration policies. In Cargo, the free and profit-driven movement of thousands of bales of our discarded clothes stands in potent counterpoint to the perilous and stymied journey of the asylum seeker. The exhibition takes a step back to reflect on the larger economic and environmental systems that perpetuate our privilege.

In spending innumerable slow hours carving these flocked effigies, Seton pauses to consider the environmental, cultural and economic impact of these systems on those that bear the burden of our dispensation. The complexities of the bales' surfaces are also a nod to the tropes of classical statuary; the shrouds, drapes and folds of cloth of European marble tradition. Here, individual garments are rendered almost unrecognisable, compressed into bales designed for circulation in transnational markets.

Cargo is at once political, personal and biographic. Mirroring the human body's seven-year replacement cycle, the bales presented in the exhibition are based on Seton's own clothes accumulated in his studio over the last seven years. The stone from which the bales are carved each refer to places and periods from the artist's life: his youth spent in the area near the Wombeyan Caves in New South Wales; years of study in traditional statuary of Bianca Carrara; exploration of the palate range of Statuary and Badiglio, and finding of a sense of place and appreciation of local textures and colour in Katoomba Green. In this way, Seton places himself within these transnational stories.

Cargo offers us an encounter with our own complicity; not only in the production of landfill sites that will outlive us several times over and the destruction of local textiles industries; it also asks us to reflect on our role in the perpetuation of systems that fuel profit while turning a blind eye to the human and environmental costs of our way of life.

A highlight of the presentation is Sydney Ball's Chromix Lumina 14, a large-scale work from the artist's Infinex series, his final and never-before-seen body of work. Realised in automotive enamel on aluminium, a method of manufacturing the artist devised out of physical necessity at the age of 81, Chromix Lumina 14 represents the pinnacle of Ball's lifeling research into the relationship between form, colour and light.

In addition, no fewer than six S+S artists have been invited to participate in the curated sections of the fair. Angela Tiatia is included in Video Contemporary, curated by Kelly Gellatly; Karen Black has collaborated with Handpicked Wines to create an immersive-art-experience-cum-bar; Glenn Barkley will create a cabinet of curiosities filled with new vessel forms and collages; while Lindy Lee, Alex Seton and Tim Silver will present solo presentations for Installation Contemporary, curated by Nina Miall.

A Countess survey of the 'Future' section of Sydney Contemporary 2017 found women accounted for only 26% of exhibiting artists. The count did not identify any trans or non-binary artists. The future is not only not female; it is cis-gendered and masculine. The panel discussion will pose a number of propositions for change, and explore how far people are really willing to go to see gender diversity in our commercial institutions, and equally in the market.

UP NEXT

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present Alex Seton's Cargo, this September at our Sydney gallery. Cargo is an exhibition of new marble sculptures depicting highly compressed bales of clothing, of the kind found in the second-hand clothes industry. Each garment packed into these volumes has its own history and story to tell. Together, they evoke a tangled mass of humanity; the mesh of needs and concerns, environments and economies that connect us all.

COMING UP

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran creates rough-edged new-age idols that are at once enticing and disquieting, exploring politics of sex, the monument, gender and organised religion. Ahead of his first solo exhibition at S+S Singapore this October, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran will be showing work with S+S at this year's Sydney Contemporary (Booth E18) and is also included in the India Ceramics Triennial, which opens in Jaipur today. 2018 has been a successful year for Nithiyendran: he was awarded the Melbourne Art Fair Young Artist Award in June and presented major solo exhibitions at both Dhaka Art Summit in India and at Art Basel Hong Kong's Encounters section. Nithiyendran has had a busy last few years with numerous major public gallery exhibitions since 2015.

ATTEND

The NGV presents an exhibition of new and recent works by celebrated Australian artist Polly Borland. Borland is a Melbourne born artist who now lives in Los Angeles and is known for her photographs of noted figures including Queen Elizabeth II, Nick Cave and Gwendoline Christie. The recent period of Borland’s practice has seen her explore more abstract and surreal imagery. Borland creates images that invite the viewer to see the human form in unfamiliar ways, infused both with humour and an unsettling disquiet. The exhibition comprises works from several of Borland’s important recent series, including Monster, Bunny, Smudge, and a series of new works.

ATTEND

ANNOUNCEMENT

01/09/2018

ALEX SETONSoloistWarners Bay, Lake Macquarie

Lake Macquarie City Council has acquired Alex Seton's Soloist, which will join Lake Macquarie's Creative Lake Sculpture Trail. "I chose the hoodie," Seton explained in an ABC Newcastle interview "because it's this ubiquitous garment, quite egalitarian... It goes back to the history of the cowl or the hood that evokes things like the monk or the Buddha."

CHECK OUT

Yang Yongliang will be the fourteenth artist in the UMFA’s salt series of contemporary art. This ongoing program of exhibitions showcases work by emerging artists from around the world. salt aims to reflect the impact of contemporary art, forging connections to the global and bringing new and diverse artwork to the city that shares the program’s name.

GO SEE

Two houses: Politics and histories in the contemporary art collections of John Chia and Yeap Lam YangInstitute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts

Until 10 October 2018

FX Harsono and eX de Medici are included in Two houses, a presentation of two significant private collections at the ICA Singapore.

John Chia and Yeap Lam Yang have assembled significant collections of contemporary art over 20 and 30 years respectively. The catalyst for Two houses was the companionable relationship between the younger Dr Chia and his friend and mentor, Mr Yeap. Both belong to a new group of art collectors in Southeast Asia whose partnerships have enlarged the reach of contemporary artists’ practices beyond the independent studio and gallery and helped foster alternative art-historical narratives.

Two housesexplores themes of civic life—social justice, labour politics, human rights and nationhood—through 40 works or groups of works made by 35 artists between 1986 and 2018.

INVITATION

Opening reception in the presence of the artist on Saturday 25 August, 5-7pm.

“History is not always glorious; it does not always narrate victories and acts of nobility.” — FX Harsono, 2018.

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present a solo exhibition by seminal Indonesian artist FX Harsono at its Singapore gallery next month. This exhibition presents the artist’s longstanding major project that investigates the genocide and mass graves of ethnic Chinese-Indonesians in Java, Indonesia from 1947 to 1949. Part documentary and part commemoration, the exhibition will see a new series of works alongside two major installations that confronts the truth of this history.

The Waves borrows its title from Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name, in which many voices unite in a single narrative. This exhibition likewise unites many voices to tell a single yet multivalent story. This story is about what happens in a white cube occupied by women and non-binary voices, and why we should be listening.

The Waves brings a diverse group of artists into a conversation about feminism, bodies, access to and occupation of space, collective action and gestures of intersectionality. In making their work, each of these artists chip away at the walls and barriers that are thrown up by patriarchal systems, biological determinism, trans-exclusionary feminism, colonialism - the list goes on.

The feminist project has been characterised by waves, a lapping at the shores of heteronormative sanctity. The works presented from these artists engage with different aspects of this project: political, social and labour-based action; reclamation and celebration of diverse bodies and identities; intersectionality; and an emergent collective anger - #metoo.

In bringing together selected works from Sullivan+Strumpf's roster of artists with guest artists, The Wavesestablishes new lines of sight between the work of diverse women and non-binary people.

ATTEND

17/08/2018

THE GOLD AWARD 2018Rockhampton Art Gallery18 August - 7 October 2018

Tony Albert and Richard Lewer are finalists in The Gold Award which opens this weekend, Join the finalists on Sunday, 19 August 2018, 10.30-11.30am, as they discuss their works for The Gold Award 2018. The conversation panel will be led by Rockhampton Art Gallery curator, Gordon Craig.

GO SEE

Barbara Cleveland and Tim Silver are included in Primavera at 25: MCA Collection which opens at The Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo on 31 August 2018. Taking this significant milestone as a departure point, this travelling exhibition brought together works from the MCA Collection by 22 artists and artist groups, who had previously exhibited in Primavera, that explored ideas of transformation, time and history.

DON'T MISS

CONGRATULATIONS

17/08/2018

DARREN SYLVESTERFinalist for The Bowness Photography PrizeMonash Gallery of Art, Victoria29 September - 18 November 2018

Suggesting that all new beginnings can be bought in this hyper-consumer culture, Sylvester probes the contemporary context in IKEA Sunrise, an image of a studio-built ocean illuminated by dry ice and an IKEA 'Fado' lamp.

CONGRATULATIONS

The inaugural Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) Art Prize will be displayed from 5 - 27 September in the NSW Parliament's Fountain Court including the Reconciliation Wall, and will showcase and celebrate the outstanding contribution Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander artists continue to make to Australian culture.

VISIT

Grant Stevens is included in Oceans From Here at the Australian Centre for Photography. This two-part exhibition explores the aesthetics of water, its ebb and flow as a global life force. In Prelude to Oceans from Here, the 'Instagram perfect' photographs taken by Grant Stevens represent a solitary quest to witness the power of cascading water.

COMING UP

Opening reception in the presence of the artist on Saturday 25 August, 5-7pm.

“History is not always glorious; it does not always narrate victories and acts of nobility.” — FX Harsono, 2018.

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to present a solo exhibition by seminal Indonesian artist FX Harsono at its Singapore gallery next month. This exhibition presents the artist’s longstanding major project that investigates the genocide and mass graves of ethnic Chinese-Indonesians in Java, Indonesia from 1947 to 1949. Part documentary and part commemoration, the exhibition will see a new series of drawings alongside two major installations that confronts the truth of this history.

The Waves borrows its title from Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name, in which many voices unite in a single narrative. This exhibition likewise unites many voices to tell a single yet multivalent story. This story is about what happens in a white cube occupied by women and non-binary voices, and why we should be listening.

The Waves brings a diverse group of artists into a conversation about feminism, bodies, access to and occupation of space, collective action and gestures of intersectionality. in making their work, each of these artists chip away at the walls and barriers that are thrown up by patriarchal systems, biological determinism, trans-exclusionary feminism, colonialism - the list goes on.

The feminist project has been characterised by waves, a lapping at the shores of heteronormative sanctity. The works presented from these artists engage with different aspects of this project: political, intersectionality; and an emergent collective anger - #metoo.

In bringing together work from Sullivan+Strumpf artists with invited artists, The Waves establishes new lines of sight between the work of diverse women and non-binary people.

VISIT

Sanné Mestrom's Black Paintings opens this Sunday, 29 July 2018, at McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery. Made from un-dyed spun wool mounted on steel frames, Mestrom's Black Paintings derive from a series of minimal abstract paintings by the American painter Frank Stella from the 1960s. Flat, sharp-edged and masculine, Stella's works exemplify the influential theory of modernism proposed by American critic Clement Greenberg - that painting was progressively refined to its surface qualities. Conversely, Mestrom's series celebrates the rough texture and comforting qualities of wool and the associated notions of weaving as a feminine craft. Stella's severe and austere canvasses are re-posed as endearing sculptural objects and installations, complemented by a series of delicate gouache paintings.

ATTEND

Join us at Margaret Lawrence Gallery on Wednesday, 2 August at 10am for an exhibition tour and an artist talk by Grant Stevens. Yours Internally combines four video works by the artist (including Happiness) and neon works by Kiron Robinson in an exploration of the internalised experiences of doubt, insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. Curated by Dr David Sequiera, with morning tea to be served during the talk.

GO SEE

28/07/2018

THE SEVENTH TARRAWARRA BIENNIALFrom Will to FormTarraWarra Museum of Art3 August - 6 November 2018

Hiromi Tango, Lindy Lee and Sanné Mestrom are included in From Will to Form, The Seventh TarraWarra Biennial, curated by Emily Cormack. The exhibition explores differing ideas of will, showing how it can be found within form, and is also passed between objects and bodies through networks of 'active forces' or 'ideal essences'.

Both Hiromi Tango and Lindy Lee will be part of the artist floor talks during the opening weekend, on Saturday, 4 August, from 2.45pm onwards. The artist floor talks will be led by Emily Cormack.

The performance, Lizard Tail (Dawn) explores human interaction with the urban environment and our constant connectivity to devices; ruminating on the mystery of those fleeting moments in the early hours, just before we awaken, when the conscious and subconscious become blurred. In Tango's word, 'The Lizard Tail is an accumulation of those things that are just out of the grasp of our consciousness, that we carry with us nonetheless.'

The Waves borrows its title from Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name, in which many voices unite in a single narrative. This exhibition likewise unites many voices to tell a single yet multivalent story. This story is about what happens in a white cube occupied by female, female-identifying and non-binary voices, and why we should be listening.

CHECK OUT

Jemima Wyman is included in Iconography of Revolt, a group exhibition which considers the ways artists, filmmakers and designers have explored and contributed to the iconography of revolt. Jemima Wyman explores the rhetoric of camouflage and masks, via the Zapatistas and Anonymous. In their trademark balaclavas, Russian punk band Pussy Riot are whipped by Cossack militia at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics for singing 'Putin will teach you how to love the motherland'. Plus, there's a promotional video for the London fashion label Maharishi's Viet-Afghan Coalition' collection.

ATTEND

The Creative Act presents Lindeman's video work, Unit, and a series of large-scale text works designed specifically for a U.S. audience. The exhibition references Marcel Duchamp's lecture (also titled The Creative Act) in Houston at the meeting of the American Federation of the Arts in April of 1957. "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."

VISIT

Yours Internally presents the work of Grant Stevens and Kiron Robinson. Join us at 10am on Thursday 2 August as the artists discuss their work with exhibition curator David Sequeira. Yours Internally combines neon works by Kiron Robinson and videos by Grant Stevens in an exploration of the internalised experiences of doubt, insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

DON'T MISS

15/07/2018

TONY ALBERTContinental Drift: Black/Blak Art from South Africa and North AustraliaCairns Art GalleryUntil 23 September 2018

Tony Albert is included in Continental Drift, a major exhibition at Cairns Art Gallery which celebrates and examines global black art and culture. The exhibition highlights the shared experiences of contemporary black/black artists from South Africa and North Australia. While both countries have different histories, British colonisation had dramatic effects on their black peoples, many of which continue to be experienced today.

GO SEE

Sanné Mestrom's Black Paintings, made from undid spun wool mounted on steel frames, derive from a series of minimal abstract paintings by the American painter Frank Stella from the 1960s. Flat, sharp-edged and masculine, Stella's works exemplify the influential theory of modernism proposed by American critic Clement Greenberg - that painting was progressively refined to its surface qualities. Conversely, Mestrom's series celebrates the rough texture and comforting qualities of wool and the associated notions of weaving as a feminine craft. Stella's severe and austere canvases are re-posed as endearing sculptural objects and installations, complemented by a series of delicate gouache paintings.

ATTEND

15/07/2018

THE SEVENTH TARRAWARRA BIENNIALFrom Will to FormTarrawarra Museum of Art3 August - 6 November 2018

Hiromi Tango, Lindy Lee and Sanné Mestrom are included in From Will to Form, The Seventh Tarrawarra Biennial curated by Emily Cormack. The exhibition explores differing ideas of will, showing how it can be found within form, and is also passed between objects and bodies through networks of 'active forces' or 'ideal essences'.

ON VIEW

15/07/2018

RICHARD LEWERState of the UnionIan Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne24 July - 28 October 2018

Richard Lewer is included in State of the Union curated by Jacqueline Doughty. The exhibition explores the relationship of artists to political engagement through a focus on the labour movement and trade unions. State of the Union presents artworks that investigate industrial action and labour issues alongside the work of artists who draw upon the traditional visual strategies of protest, such as banners, posters and collaborative actions.

CHECK OUT

Liam O'Brien's video Early April will be shown at the American Australian Association's Dame Joan Sutherland Fund Showcase in New York on 19 July. The AAA has to date awarded more than $1 million in DJSF grants to over 500 emerging artists in Australia and America since 1998.

The performance, Lizard Tail (Dawn) explores human interaction with the urban environment and our constant connectivity to devices; ruminating on the mystery of those fleeting moments in the early hours, just before we awaken, when the conscious and subconscious become blurred. In Tango's word, 'The Lizard Tail is an accumulation of those things that are just out of the grasp of our consciousness, that we carry with us nonetheless.'

VISIT

LISTEN

13/07/2018

RAMESH MARIO NITHIYENDRANABC Radio National Interview

Ahead of his solo exhibition, R@MESH Volume II, which is slated to open at S+S Singapore on 17 November, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran spoke to ABC Radio National's Daniel Browning about religion, gender, colonialism and the phallus.

GO SEE

13/07/2018

EX DE MEDICI & FX HARSONOTwo Houses: Politics and histories in the contemporary art collections of John Chia and Yeap Lam YangInstitute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LASALLE College of the Arts21 July - 10 October 2018

eX de Medici's Ruger Blackhawk (2016) is included in Two Houses, a presentation of two significant private collections at the ICA Singapore. Committed collectors John Chia and Leap Lam Yang have assembled significant collections of contemporary art over 20 and 30 years respectively. Dr Chia and Mr Yeap share a focus on contemporary Southeast Asian art, but their acquisitions reflect their different personalities and interests.

ATTEND

The nature of representation is inherently flawed. Ideological and innately restrictive, the meaning of any given representation is never definitive as the gap between intention and realisation, original and copy, can never be bridged.

Irfan Hendrian’s SANS☒ explores the expansive potential of non-representational aesthetics and thinking strategies. The artist’s non-objective practice operates beyond the finite nature of representation, extending the possibilities of perceptual and imaginative experiences. In this exhibition, “SANS” (literally, without) followed by the symbol “☒” is used to describe an absence of representation.

Within the space opened up by the absence of signs – things that "stand for" or "take the place of" something else – Hendrian presents us with a particular aesthetic experience; foreign and strange, but equally playful. In these eccentrically coloured, painstakingly constructed forms, Hendrian draws us into a peculiar imaginary space, releasing us from the rules of representation into a state of perceptual ‘tabula rasa’.

VISIT

01/07/2018

RAMESH MARIO NITHIYENDRANWe are all connected to Campbelltown one way or anotherCampbelltown Arts CentreOpening 11 August 2018

We are all connected to Campbelltown one way or another, is an exhibition that celebrates this 30 year milestone, presenting new commissions that consider the history, place, people and presence of Campbelltown through the notion of gift giving and exchange.

GO SEE

CHECK OUT

29/06/2018

LIAM O'BRIENFrom Here to There: Australian Art and WalkingLismore Regional Gallery7 July - 26 august 2018

Liam O'Brien's video, Whistling in the Dark (2013) is included in From Here to There: Australian Art and Walking which presents the work of leading Australian artists who use the everyday act of walking in their art. Curated by Northern Rivers-based curators, Sharne Wolff and Jane Denison.

VISIT

29/06/2018

RICHARD LEWERState of the UnionIan Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne24 July - 28 October 2018

Richard Lewer is included in State of the Union, curated by Jacqueline Doughty. The exhibition explores the relationship of artists to political engagement through a focus on the labour movement and trade unions. State of the Union presents artworks that investigate industrial action and labour issues alongside the work of artists who draw upon the traditional visual strategies of protest, such as banners, posters and collaborative actions.

ATTEND

Hiromi Tango's Healing Garden (RPA) is part of a new series of community-engagement projects by Arterie@RPA, focused on creating safe, nurturing spaces that encourage creative expression and emotional transformation. Drawing on native Australian flora as the inspiration for the many ways that plants and flowers can contribute to well-being.

READ

29/06/2018

JEREMY SHARMAfidelityAloft at Hermès, SingaporeUntil 19 August 2018

"The word fidelity does not necessarily mean a hundred percent exactitude, but suggests a degree of it. Sharma’s musical representation is diluted — the music of communities that are not his own filtered through production, and eventually relayed to our eyes in place far dislocated from the music’s origin. It may sound authentic to us, but is it really? When I say diluted, what was it originally then? And was that original thing in itself authentic? Ambiguity is the field in which Sharma thrives." - Joyce Choong, The Artling, 15 June 2018.

ATTEND

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to present, Out of Life, an exhibition of new work by Darren Sylvester. Combining references to Hollywood, magic, mortality and Microsoft, the exhibition was inspired by the purchase of an unidentified 1970s science fiction space suit.Out of Life continues Sylvester's ongoing interest in authenticity, desire and death; subjects he examines through an off-beat narrative borne out of a lost moment of pop-culture.

Last year Sylvester purchased a 1970s-style science fiction space suit from an auction house sale of old costumes from Hollywood films and TV shows. Catalogued with no known provenance, the costume was rendered relatively worthless. The only clue to its history was the name, Stacey, hand-written on a tag on the inside. Was Stacey the actor's name or a TV character? In Out of Life, Sylvester uses her long-forgotten costume to resurrect Stacey in two large-format film photographs; trapped in character forever inside a B-Grade film set. Bored and melancholy, Stacey waits for her scene to be called, a battle to begin, for love to arrive – or somehow, to go home. Left all alone in this make-believe universe, Stacey holds a feeling relatable to everyone – being all out of life.

ATTEND

Michael Lindeman’s, An Awkward Dance is a complex exploration into his own identity, a burrowing into the realm of institutional critique, and an exercise in bypassing culturally sanctioned principles.

An Awkward Dance is a presentation of paintings, drawings and sculpture that invert structures of power and authority with wit and sarcasm. Lindeman is compelled to make art that entertains himself, art that does something other than sitting on its arse in a gallery space. His conceptual practice calls for a dynamic engagement from the viewer by way of a shared experience.

CONGRATULATIONS

28/06/2018

ANGELA TIATIA2018 Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize

Congratulations to Angela Tiatia who has been awarded the 2018 Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize - Australia's richest women's art prize - for her work, The Fall. Commissioned by the Australian War Memorial, The Fall was inspired by accounts of the fall of Singapore in 1942. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Linda Morris quotes the Judges' description of The Fall as a "masterful video work with the richness and theatricality of a 19th century tableau vivant."

ON VIEW IN LISBON

28/06/2018

ALEX SETONListening to the WatersMuseo do Dinheiro, LisbonUntil 8 September 2018

Alex Seton's 'Deluge in a Paper Cup' 2016 (collection Fondation François Schneider) is currently on display in 'Listening to the waters' at Museo do Dinheiro, Lisbon. Exhibiting works from the Foundation François Schneider as well as contemporary Portuguese artists, the exhibition considers water as an element in which opposites collide: "a vital resource and the cause of mortal conflicts - the setting for journeys full of hope and a shameful cemetery of the abandoned; a natural threat to mankind while being irretrievably threatened by it; a symbol of life, and of death; an image of time passing, running away from us, and of the eternal source of life, the maternal womb..."

In 2016 Alex Seton was one of seven laureates of the 'Talents Contemporains' at the Fondation François Schneider, France. 'Deluge in a Paper Cup', was selected as one of 42 finalists selected from 2363 applicants across 90 countries responding to the collection's theme of 'water'.

GO SEE

Sanné Mestrom's Black Paintings, made from undid spun wool mounted on steel frames, derive from a series of minimal abstract paintings by the American painter Frank Stella from the 1960s. Flat, sharp-edged and masculine, Stella's works exemplify the influential theory of modernism proposed by Clement Greenberg - that painting was progressively refined to its surface qualities. Conversely, Mestrom's series celebrates the rough texture and comforting qualities of wool and the associated notions of weaving as a feminine craft. Stella's sever and austere canvases are re-posed as endearing sculptural objects and installations, complemented by a series of delicate gouache paintings.

COMING UP

28/06/2018

THE SEVENTH TARRAWARRA BIENNIALFrom Will to FormTarraWarra Museum of Art3 August - 6 November 2018Curated by Emily Cormack

Hiromi Tango, Lindy Lee and Sanné Mestrom are included in From Will to Form, the Seventh Tarrawarra Biennial, curated by Emily Cormack. The exhibition explores different ideas of will, showing how it can be found within form, and is also passed between objects and bodies through networks of 'active forces' or 'ideal essences'.

DON'T MISS

28/06/2018

TONY ALBERTContinental Drift: Black/Blak Art from South Africa and North AustraliaCairns Art Gallery6 July - 23 September

Tony Albert is included in Continental Drift, a major exhibition at Cairns Art Gallery which celebrates and examines global black art and culture. The exhibition highlights the shared experiences of contemporary blak/black artists from South Africa and North Australia. While both countries have different histories, British colonisation had dramatic effects on their black peoples, many of which continue to be experienced today.

Tony Albert will participate in an artist talk as part of the exhibition's public program on Thursday 12 July 2018 at 11.15am.

New News Item

28/06/2018

ANGELA TIATIA2018 Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize

Congratulations to Angela Tiatia who has been awarded the 2018 Ravenswood Australian Women's Art Prize - Australia's richest women's art prize - for her work, The Fall. Commissioned by the Australian War Memorial, The Fall was inspired by accounts of the fall of Singapore in 1942. In the Sydney Morning Herald, Linda Morris quotes the Judges' description of The Fall as a "masterful video work with the richness and theatricality of a 19th century tableau vivant."

INVITATION

Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore is delighted to present Indonesian artist and industrial printmaker Irfan Hendrian's debut solo exhibition. The nature of representation is inherently flawed. Ideological and innately restrictive, the meaning of any given representation is never definitive as the gap between intention and realisation, original and copy, can never be bridged.

Irfan Hendrian’s SANS☒ explores the expansive potential of non-representational aesthetics and thinking strategies. The artist’s non-objective practice operates beyond the finite nature of representation, extending the possibilities of perceptual and imaginative experiences. In this exhibition, “SANS” (literally understood without) followed by the symbol “☒ ” is used to describe an absence of representation.

Within the space opened up by the absence of signs – things that "stand for" or "take the place of" something else – Hendrian presents us with a particular aesthetic experience; foreign and strange, but equally playful. In these eccentrically coloured, painstakingly constructed forms, Hendrian draws us into a peculiar imaginary space, releasing us from the rules of representation into a state of perceptual ‘tabula rasa’.

INVITATION

Michael Lindeman’s, An Awkward Dance is a complex exploration into his own identity, a burrowing into the realm of institutional critique, and an exercise in bypassing culturally sanctioned principles.

An Awkward Dance is a presentation of paintings, drawings and sculpture that invert structures of power and authority with wit and sarcasm. Lindeman is compelled to make art that entertains himself, art that does something other than sitting on its arse in a gallery space. His conceptual practice calls for a dynamic engagement from the viewer by way of a shared experience.

An Awkward Dance sets out to activate repressed impulses, embody alienation, disrupt convention and invert structures of power, with a certain self-deprecating humour. In direct contrast to the notion of artist as genius, Lindeman’s wilful idiocy goes out on a limb, he risks his neck to propose a body of works that are a mismatch with any current fashionable aesthetics, it is an awkward dance.

INVITATION

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to present, Out of Life, an exhibition of new work by Darren Sylvester. Combining references to Hollywood, magic, mortality and Microsoft, the exhibition was inspired by the purchase of an unidentified 1970s science fiction space suit.Out of Life continues Sylvester's ongoing interest in authenticity, desire and death; subjects he examines through an off-beat narrative borne out of a lost moment of pop-culture.

Last year Sylvester purchased a 1970s-style science fiction space suit from an auction house sale of old costumes from Hollywood films and TV shows. Catalogued with no known provenance, the costume was rendered relatively worthless. The only clue to its history was the name, Stacey, hand-written on a tag on the inside. Was Stacey the actor's name or a TV character? In Out of Life, Sylvester uses her long-forgotten costume to resurrect Stacey in two large-format film photographs; trapped in character forever inside a B-Grade film set. Bored and melancholy, Stacey waits for her scene to be called, a battle to begin, for love to arrive – or somehow, to go home. Left all alone in this make-believe universe, Stacey holds a feeling relatable to everyone – being all out of life.

Darren Sylvester's multi-disciplinary practice involves photography, sculpture, video, music and performance. Often incorporating a complex matrix of pop-culture elements and executed with the production quality associated with high-end fashion publishing, Sylvester's work explores notions of contemporary ennui, pathos and mortality through narratives that are direct, yet inherently complex.

The theme of the exhibition draws inspiration from the event horizon, a phenomenon in the theory of general relativity where the force of gravity presents outward movement. The isolation of space and time from outside influence forms the subject of several works, as well as Sharma's enquiries into the relationship between art, music, travel, contingency and the dynamics of artwork production and family life. These are explored in the works' non-linear narratives and ambiguous relationships between cause and effect.

ANNOUNCEMENT

17/06/2018

NOW REPRESENTING: BARBARA CLEVELAND

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to announce its representation of Barbara Cleveland.

Barbara Cleveland (Diana Baker Smith, Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore, Kelly Doley) is an Australian artist collective working on Gadigal land (Sydney). Previously working under the title of Brown Council, the collective transitioned to Barbara Cleveland in 2016. Taking their name from the mythic feminist performance artist (Barbara Cleveland) - whom they recovered from the margins of Australian art history - and who has been a key feature in their work since 2010.

Barbara Cleveland's projects are informed by queer and feminist methodologies that draw on the historical lineages of both the visual and performing arts. Their recent video and performance works are deliberations on history and memory as embodied action, as fiction, as mode of collaboration.

Works by Barbara Cleveland are held in numerous public collections throughout Australia, including Artbank, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

CHECKOUT

Melbourne Art Foundation continues to support contemporary art and living artists through its presentation of Melbourne Art Week and in 2018 has joined with Associate Partner, MLC Life Insurance, to commission a new work from Japanese-born, Australian-based artist Hiromi Tango entitled Lizard Tail (Dawn).

SUPPORT

Very Special Kids will present an exceptional charity auction in conjunction with Deutsche and Hackett on Thursday, 14 June 2018, at 1140 Malvern Road Melbourne from 6.30pm. The auction includes Alexander Seton's Bentwood Hybrids (2016) and Gregory Hodge's Theatre (2015).

VISIT

07/06/2018

BADEN PAILTHORPEClangerUTS GalleryUntil 22 June 2018

Baden Pailthorpe's 'Clanger', on view at UTS Gallery until 22 June, will be the starting point for a roundtable discussion on sport, power and creativity at UTS on Friday, 8 June 2018, 6-8pm. Led by Deb Verhoeven, panelists include Adam Goodes, Louise Stephenson, Professor Kim Vincs and Professort Aaron Coutts.

ATTEND

06/06/2018

GLENN BARKLEYimayimightimustSullivan+Strumpf | Sydney7 - 23 June 2018

Opening reception and artist talk on Thursday, 7 June 2018, 6 - 8pm

"Sometimes I think I have a form of obsessive compulsion that drives my work. For as long as I can remember I have looked at, researched, collected and studied different objects, artworks and cultural materials until I reach an exhaustion point. I think I have now turned this compulsion over to my work and it as if each new work is an obsession that, once complete, allows me to move on to the next pot, or collage or painting, until that too is exhausted in a process that can continue ad-infinitum." - Glenn Barkley

NOW ON

06/06/2018

EX DE MEDICISmithereensSullivan+Strumpf | SingaporeUntil 24 June 2018

"Beneath each work is a sequence of tally marks, every black stroke indicating a 16-to-18-hour day spent on its creation. In the beginning, de Medici kept this count like a prisoner might. 'When I started, it was a torture to me. Then I grew to love it.'" - eX de Medici in conversation with Akshita Nanda in The Straits Times, 30 May 2018.

CHECK OUT

06/06/2018

YANG YONGLIANGStreams and Mountains without End: Landscape Traditions of ChinaThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkUntil 18 August 2019

Yang Yongliang's Viewing the Tide, 2008 from the Met's own collection, is included in Streams and Mountains without End, the Metropolitan Museum's current survey exhibition of Chinese landscape painting.

VISIT

Sam Leach is included in Dark (Other) Times, a group exhibition as part of Dark Mofo. The exhibition is organised around the polarised moods that characterise living in our "interesting times": on one hand expansive and ecstatic, psychedelic and transcendental; on the other hand, seemingly stalled - time endured, languidly, with a sense of torpor, ennui or petrification.

DON'T MISS

Sam Jinks and Sam Leach are included in My Monster, a group exhibition at RMIT Gallery celebrating the 200th anniversary year of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and the enduring fascination with the human animal hybrid.

VISIT

Paired showcases eight collaborative projects between artists living with and without intellectual/developmental disability or cognitive difference. The exhibition examines the intricacies of these collaborations including how communication, friendship and mutual education/mentorship develops between artist pairs. Paired includes Glenn Barkley's collaboration with John and Glenda Havilah.

Conversions draws inspiration from the event horizon, a phenomena in the theory of general relativity. The exhibition continues Sharma's enquiry into the relationship between art, travel, contingency and the dynamics of family life.

GO SEE

Paired is an exhibition curated by artist and arts worker, Harriet Body that showcases eight collaborative projects between artists living with and without intellectual/developmental disability or cognitive difference from across Australia plus one project from the UK. Harriet’s research examines the intricacies of these collaborations including how communication, friendship, and mutual education/mentorship develops between such artist pairs.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Tony Albert's Visible opens tomorrow at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. At the age of 37, Visible is Tony Albert's first major solo institutional exhibition and includes all aspects of his practice - from object-based assemblages, to painting, photography, video and installation - eliciting a powerful response to popular culture misrepresentations of Australia's First Peoples. The title of the exhibition is a reference to the statement, 'Invisible is my favourite colour'; a phrase often used by Albert and around which the exhibition is structured. The exhibition problematises representations of Aboriginal peoples through wit and fervent protest, addressing issues of race and representation directly with large-scale appropriations and re-appropriations of kitsch 'Aboriginalia'. Visible is presented alongside Albert's We Can Be Heroes, a parallel project at the Queensland Art Gallery's Children's Art Centre, which engages with children and families in exploring how, through overcoming our fears, we can all be empowered.

In the current issue of Artlines, Coby Edgar writes that "The kitsch ashtrays and decorative boomerangs that feature in Albert's works also float in our collective subconscious, like fragments in a vast psychological universe, discarded, until now." Read Edgar's full article here. Jane Albert writing in the Weekend Australian describes Albert's work as having "the effect of being hit by an iron fist in a velvet glove." Read her full article here.

Sullivan+Strumpf is also delighted to announce the Queensland Art Gallery's acquisition of Tony Albert's series The Force is With Us, his collaboration with photographer David C Collins and children from the Warakurna community; Kieren Smythe-Jackson, Aziah Smyhte, Braidan Reid, Joel Spring and Lucy Lewis.

An extensive series of talks and events has been programmed to accompany the exhibition including a keynote conversation between Tony albert and curator, writer and presenter, Hetti Perkins at 12.30pm on Saturday, 2 June 2018, in the Queensland Art gallery's Lecture Theatre.

COMING UP

INVITATION

30/05/2018

GLENN BARKLEYImayimightimustSullivan+Strumpf | Sydney7 - 23 June 2018

Opening reception and artist talk on Thursday, 7 June 2018, 6 - 8pm

"Sometimes I think that I have a form of obsessive compulsion that drives my work. For as long as I can remember I have looked at, researched, collected and studied different objects, artworks and cultural materials until I reach an exhaustion point. I think that I have now turned this compulsion over to my work and it is as if each new work is an obsession that once complete allows me to move on to the next put, or collage or painting, until that too is exhausted in a process that can continue ad-infinitum." - Glenn Barkley, May 2018

Glenn Barkley is an artist, writer, curator and gardener based in Sydney and Berry NSW, Australia. His work operates in the space between these interests, drawing upon the deep history of ceramics, popular song, the garden and conversations about art and the internet.

Barkley was previously senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2008-2014) and curator of the University of Wollongong Art Collection (1996-2007). He is co-founder and co-director of The Curators Department, Sydney and of kil.n.it experimental ceramics studio Glebe, Sydney. He was a finalist in the 2017 Sidney Myer Ceramics Award and his work is held in numerous collections both nationally and internationally, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Shepparton Art Museum and Artbank, Sydney.

READ

"A very important aspect of my work is you can't get an eye and the brain behind an eye if you assault it," she says. "Watercolour is a device. I openly explored it and exploited it to my ends, but I wanted to make beautiful things as well." - eX de Medici

GO SEE

20/05/2018

BADEN PAILTHORPEClangerUTS GalleryUntil 22 June 2018

Clanger, a solo exhibition by Baden Pailthorpe, explores the aesthetics of power through data, bodies and technology. In an environment that is both physical and virtual, Clanger pairs the statistical tracking of AFL player performance with the emotional intensities of the crowd.

INVITATION

20/05/2018

EX DE MEDICISmithereensSullivan+Strumpf | Singapore25 May - 24 June 2018

Opening on Friday, 25 May 2018, 7-9pm

Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia by senior Australian artist eX de Medici. eX de Medici's richly ornamented work interrogates the politics of power and gender relations. Working in the demanding medium of watercolour, often on an unusally monumental scale, de Medici's practice engages with politico-economic systems of control and the ways in which there are constructed and distributed through violence. de Medici will present a medium-defying seven-meter-long watercolour from the 2017 series Spies Like Us featuring CCTV encrusted telephone towers, and new "Smithereens" paintings, a series from which the exhibition takes its title. This exhibition extends de Medici's exploration of corporate morality, mass surveillance, data collection and the consequences that accompany the abuse of authority. Art, says de Medici, has no ability to make a difference, but we must raise the alarm. If we don't we are complicit.

VISIT

fidelity transports visitors to the heart of different cultural communities from across Southeast Asia. From the nostalgic melodies of the Kristang people, a group descended from Portugese sailors who arrived in Malaysia in the 16th century, to the Persian and Arab sonorities woven into the rhythmic chants of the Rohingya, the artist has recorded songs of love and belief. In his first sound installation, Sharma sculpts voices and language as so many materials bearing the imprint of history.

DON'T MISS

This triennial exhibition is a wide-ranging exploration of interactions between the social and political, ecological, and psychological. It encompasses the larger vistas of economics, science and nature as well as contemporary subjectivity and language.

GO SEE

Starring the children of Warrakurna, 'We Can Be Heroes' explores how we can all be empowered, by overcoming our fears. Tony Albert collaborated with children and artists from Warrakurna to create a number of the artworks for display in the exhibition space, including the photographic series Warrakurna - Superheroes 2017 and illuminated paintings featuring the Mamu, the fearful trickster spirits found in Warrakurna.

CONGRATULATIONS

18/05/2018

Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2018Art Gallery of New South Wales, SydneyUntil 9 September 2018

Congratulations to our artists who are finalists in this year's prizes:Angela Tiatia in the Archibald PrizeKaren Black, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran and Gregory Hodge in the Sir John Sulman PrizeHiromi Tango in the Wynne Prize

ATTEND

18/05/2018

SAM LEACHBirds and BeesMuseum of Discovery, AdelaideMay - October 2018

Birds and Bees, at the recently opened MOD, is a collaborative project between Sam Leach and Professor Mandyam (Srini) Srinivasam (University of Queensland. The project brings art and science together to shine a light on the differences between human and animal perception, spatial navigation and illusion.

UP NEXT

Join us at booth D8 for a program of artist talks at 11.30am during the VIP preview on Wednesday 23 May, and from 12.30pm on Thursday 24 May 2018.

Sullivan+Strumpf will be participating at Auckland Art Fair 2018 (Booth D8) with a presentation of works by Glenn Barkley, Sanné Mestrom and Richard Lewer. Richard Lewer presents Redheads, a series of portraits, which explore his own experience growing up as "a ginger" and his continuing interest in cultural representations of redheads and the traditions of portraiture. Sanné Mestrom will show ceramic objects from the series, Homer and the Ancient Poets, each the product of time constrained by motherhood; every form the result of what could be achieved in the short bursts of time allowed. Glenn Barkley will present a selection of coiled earthenware vessels, including obsessively patterned pots with tiny "pox" holes. Angela Tiatia's HD video, The Fall, originally commissioned by the Australian War Memorial in 2017, is presented in Project Space P15. The Fall draws on the accounts of survivors of the Battle of Singapore during the Second World War. We look forward to welcoming you to the fair.

COMING UP

EX DE MEDICISmithereens25 May - 24 June 2018Sullivan+Strumpf | Singapore

Opening on Friday, 25 May 2018, 7-9pm

Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia by senior Australian artist, eX de Medici.

The watercolours in Smithereens draw on key themes in de Medici's work, exemplified by the panoramic tableaus. Alive to the dangers of governmental control in an increasingly digitised world, she realises our worst nightmares in Spies Like Us (2016), replete with a nest of mobile phone towers, and a cluster of ominously dispassionate surveillance cameras. I killed her with my club (2017) finds her in familiar territory, with the language of flower painting hard up against emblems of power and death. Amongst a field of floral motifs lie deadly rounds of 'expanded ammunition'. Devised to unfurl on impact, the bullets rip through flesh, the spent cartridges bearing an uncanny resemblance to flowers.

ATTEND

fidelity is Jeremy Sharma’s first sound-only project in which he creates an assemblage of experiences, atmospheres and sensations with a bridge of songs which asks of us: can the human voice truly encapsulate an alternated place, time and environment?

COMING UP

Opening on Saturday, 12 May 2018, 3-5pmThe artist will be in conversation with Michelle Newton, Deputy Director of Artspace, Sydney

In Samuel Beckett's play Endgame, the unspoken "pause" leads to an endless play of meanings and indeterminacies. Beckett uses the silent pause to subvert the idea of any singular, rigid meaning; providing a kind of glitch or fracture within which to represent the unfamiliar, unknown and unspoken, "I hesitate, I hesitate to ....... To end," says Hamm.

A negative space full of possibility and mutability, Beckett referred to the pause as the "vast will of unmaking". Like a fracture or crack, the pause splits a moment in two, whilst simultaneously unifying it. Similarly, in Not hours minutes, Karen Black examines the inaudible marks and indeterminate moments within her existing work, revealing the potency of pauses glimpsed in conversation, on a walk, during a train trip, or in fleeting views from the window. Black reinterprets the ambiguities of these silent pauses and pregnant caesuras in expressive painterly gesture on canvas and ceramic vessels.

Following a one-year studio residency at Artspace, Sydney, during which Black worked towards an exhibition for the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, these works engage with the physical dynamics of painting, using architectural, historical and everyday references. The exhibition's largest work, Table Manners (acrylic and oil on linen, 210 x 200 cm), mirrors the size of a set of louvred windows in the artist's bedroom; a proscenium space revealing the passing season, the weather and activities of the imagination - an aperture through which to pause for reflection; wherein time seems to stop.

UP NEXT

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to present the first solo exhibition in Sydney by celebrated Chinese new media artist, Yang Yongliang (b. 1980 Shanghai). A key voice of his generation, Yang is currently in residence at Dunedin Public Art Gallery as their 2018 International Visiting Artist. The exhibition at Sullivan+Strumpf coincides with his inclusion in Streams and Mountains without End at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (until 12 August 2018) and 2050, A Brief History of the Future, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (until 3 June 2018).

Yang exploits a connection between traditional Chinese art and the complexities of contemporary urban life, conflating ancient oriental aesthetics and literati beliefs with modern language and digital techniques. Born in Shanghai where he now lives and works, his groundbreaking use of photography and new media, including virtual reality and multi-channel video, is informed by Chinese Philosophy and his early training in the inherited traditions of Song Dynasty landscape painting.

Yang's work "speaks to the evolving and ever-changing dynamic of Asia [...] his significance is really that he encapsulates this moment of transition in China so well." - Mikala Tai, Director of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, quoted in Art Collector, Issue 84, April - June 2018.

Yang Yongliang is included in numerous international museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts Boston, San Francisco; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; British Museum, London; Brooklyn Museum, New York; and the How Art Museum, Shanghai. His work has been exhibited at various international museums and biennials, including Karuizawa New Art Museum, Nagano (2017); Somerset House London (2016, 2013); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2016, 2011); White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney (2016); Modern Art Museum, Paris (2015); Kunst und Kultur in Neuried e.V (2016); Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan (2015); Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea (2014); Singapore Art Science Museum, Singapore (2014); Moscow Biennale, Moscow (2013); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2012); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2012); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013). Yang will also be included in a forthcoming group exhibition at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand, opening December 2018.

ANNOUNCEMENT

01/05/2018

Lindy Lee's monumental, The Life of Stars, has been acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia. The acquisition is dedicated to Nick Mitzevich's tenure as Gallery Director at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to announce The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) has acquired Lindy Lee's monumental sculptural work, The Life of Stars. The AGSA has dedicated the acquisition to the tenure of it's outgoing Gallery Director Nick Mitzevich, who has been announced as the next director of the National Gallery of Australia. The acquisition recognises Lindy Lee as among the most significant artists in the Asia-Pacific region.

The six-meter mirror-polished stainless steel work is currently installed in the AGSA's forecourt as part of Divided Worlds: The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, curated by Erica Green. Made with the assistance of Urban Art Projects, the epic work has been realised in an edition of five, the first of which forms part of a major corporate collection in Shanghai.

DON'T MISS

29/04/2018

POLLY BORLANDSheer FantasyCampbelltown Arts Centre

Until 3 June 2018

A group exhibition curated by David Capra, Sheer Fantasy suspends time to confront the role of the fantastical. In this exhibition, the world as we know it bends and shifts, making room to indulge in our greatest fantasies.

CHECK OUT

Another Dimension is a group exhibition exploring the dynamic relationship between form and content in contemporary art, by positioning sculpture as part of a broader two and three-dimensional spatial practice.

ATTEND

27/04/2018

SYDNEY BALLThe Field RevisitedNational Gallery of Victoria27 April - 26 August 2018

Sydney Ball's vibrant colour field paintings represented an approach to abstraction which marked a major shift in Australian art when presented in The Field exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968. Beckett Rozentals writes in The Australian, that The Field Revisited, opening at the NGV today, reconfirms that "the significance of The Field in Australian art history cannot be overemphasised."

A pioneer of non-objective painting and the development of abstraction in Australia (as well as the designer of the original 1968 exhibition poster) Sydney Ball's inclusion in The Field Revisited coincides with a major presentation of his work in the Biennale of Sydney, SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement, curated by Mami Kataoka, highlighting Ball's continued relevance and influence on generations of contemporary artists.

Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney is delighted to announce that a major exhibition of Sydney Ball's last unseen body of work will be presented at the gallery in October/November 2018.

ATTEND

As part of ART|JOG 2018 at the Jogja National Museum in Indonesia, Hiromi Tango will present an interactive mixed media installation, Healing Garden (Yogyakarta), along with a live interactive flower performance on 4th and 5th May 2018.

DON'T MISS

Jeremy Sharma's multidisciplinary practice explores ideas around aesthetics and production. His practice investigates various modes of inquiry in the information age, addressing our present relationship to modernity and interconnectivity in the everyday and our place in an increasingly fragmented world.

GO SEE

Grant Stevens' 2016 series, The Waterfalls is included in this triennial exhibition at QUT Art Museum. The exhibition is a wide-ranging exploration of interactions between the social and political, ecological and psychological. It encompasses the larger vistas of economics, science and nature as well as contemporary subjectivity and language.

GO SEE

25/04/2018

BADEN PAILTHORPEClangerUTS Art1 May - 22 June 2018

Opening Tuesday, 1 May 2018, 6-8pm, UTS Gallery

Clanger, a solo exhibition by Baden Pailthorpe, explores the aesthetics of power through data, bodies and technology. In an environment that is both physical and virtual, Clanger pairs the statistical tracking of AFL player performance with the emotional intensities of the crowd.

ON VIEW NOW

25/04/2018

SANNÉ MESTROMCorrectionsGippsland Art GalleryUntil 20 May 2018

In Corrections, Mestrom expands her focus to the female nude. The exhibition explores the changing physicality of the female body, inspired by the artist's own pregnancy. Through concrete, steel, bronze and clay, Mestrom explores a range of subtle (and not so subtle) bodily 'corrections'.

READ

"Ancient Chinese art has a great impact on me, it reflects in who I am and what I do as an art maker, but at the same time I'm fascinated by new technologies." – Yang Yongliang in conversation with Andrew Stooke, Art Collector, Issue 84, April–June 2018.

GO SEE

Polly Borland is included in Sheer Fantasy, curated by Western Sydney artist, David Capra. "Sheer Fantasy suspends time to confront the role of the fantastical and how it plays within our collective conscious. In this exhibition, the world as we know it bends and shifts, making room to indulge in our greatest fantasies.

The exhibition includes a number of newly commissioned works, where artists have contemplated private and internal landscapes that have long influenced their practice. Manifested in bold architectural additions to the gallery spaces, these backdrops provide an immersive experience of constructed escapisms that are strangely familiar; referencing movie sets of Hollywood Westerns, candy-coloured theme parks and fanciful theatrics. Nostalgic tropes surrounding the notion of make-believe are questioned, loosened and pulled apart, allowing the imagination to run free. The opening night will feature a performance by L’astro ArmonicoString Orchestra, conducted by Mr George Kowalik."

"There is something unnerving about a trompe-l’œil. Such trickery of perspective ruptures the trust we place in our vision, our eyes onto the world. Our ability to perceive reality and discern truth is questioned the moment our eye is deceived. No longer able to trust our observations, the once taut veneer of actuality suddenly appears fragile. In this moment, the peculiarities of contradictions allow new perspectives to emerge and we are briefly able to look at the everyday anew.

Trompe-l’œil brings together six artists from across Asia and Australia who seek to reimagine understandings and expectations. Their works, although diverse, all use artistic techniques to recast our readings of the everyday. Through holographic shifts, tessellated shadows and unexpected flickers the works reveal alternative futures and dark realities. With the comfort of expectation lost, the view is invited to consider, in that moment of rupture, the expanded possibilities of new perspectives." - DR. MIKALA TAI, 2018

GO SEE

10/04/2018

Sanné MestromCorrectionsGippsland Art Gallery 31 March – 20 May 2018

In her latest exhibition 'Corrections', Mestrom expands her focus to a subject that has figured prominently in the history of sculpture: the female nude. This collection of inventive and playful sculptures explores the changing physicality of the female body, inspired by her own pregnancy. Describing her work as ‘playable sculpture’, Mestrom uses concrete, steel, bronze, and clay as a means of exploring a range of subtle (and not so subtle) bodily ‘corrections’.

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Another Dimension explores the dynamic relationship between form and content in contemporary art, by positioning sculpture as part of a broader two and three-dimensional spatial practice. The exhibition showcases six contemporary Australian artists who, working across and between media, have creatively ventured into other dimensions: Benjamin Armstrong, Sanné Mestrom, Robert Owen, Steaphan Paton, Marian Tubbs, and Michelle Ussher.

ATTEND

In her first solo exhibition in Australia since the acclaimed, Reverse Cinema (Sullivan+Strumpf 2015), Judy Millar returns with a series of new large-scale paintings and works on paper which explore her deep connection to the landscape of the West Coast of New Zealand, where the artist lives and works. The exhibition coincides with Millar's inclusion in Unpainting, a large international overview of abstraction at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. This precedes a major survey exhibition of her new work next year at Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Zurich.

The golden sunsets, black sands and wild expanse of the Pacific Ocean off New Zealand's Western Coastline, imbue these works with a palpable sense of place; a place which Millar imagines through painted gesture and an ongoing consideration of the relationship between surface, space and time. As with her celebrated immersive environments, these spatial paintings invite the viewer to consider the artist's experience of space and time merging.

"The Land is in everything I do... The sunsets, the evening light on the water, the colours. I think they just go into your brain and you take them up somehow - there's a kind of glowing-ness." - Judy Millar in conversation with Alison Veness for 10 Magazine, February 2018.

The paintings in My body Pressed continue this line of thought, invoking a sense of the body's interaction with nature in their blood-red,jade green, and bruising purple tones, which also recall the bleed of coloured inks in comic books. In this way, Millar draws attention to the often ambiguous and subjective relationship between the real world and the mediated world of images, and the ways in which that uneasy alliance can influence our experience of painting.

ATTEND

In an era of meditation apps, resilience training, and wellness spas, the mastery of one's inner life has never seemed more important. Emotional dexterity and self-enhancement are key personal attributes for anyone hoping to excel as a person, partner, friend or colleague. Coaches, consultants, stylists, nutritionists, gurus, and mentors can all help, but the real work of self-actualisation falls to you.

This exhibition of new moving image and photographic works continues Grant Stevens' exploration of the apathies and contradictions that haunt the aspirational self. Using a variety of digital production processes, these works explore the contemporary confluences of contemplation, digital technologies and obsessions with self-improvement.

In the video, Happiness, for example, mantras and phrases from mindfulness meditation, corporate training, positive psychology, online dating and job applications mingle together on screen. The text combines with an uplifting soundtrack to narrate a celebratory progression towards an idealised self.

Another new video, The Universe, features simple representations of atoms, stars and galaxies as a male narrator describes the history of the universe. Drawing on the conventions of nature documentaries, The Universe condenses the entire history of the universe, blending particle physics with cosmic existentialism.

The Studio Meditation series is a set of lenticular prints in which layers of abstract colour patterns shift and change according to the angle of view. The layers are computer-generated through an automated algorithmic process triggered by the artist meditating in his studio. As the artist undertakes a 10-minute mindfulness meditation, his computer begins a process of creating Photoshop layers according to a set of scripted code. These layers are combined through lenticular printing, which creates an almost infinite array of possible images, evoking an ever-changing visualisation of the meditative experience.

Finally, Phalaenopsis I and Phalaenopsis II depict supermarket-bought phalaenopsis orchids using product photography conventions. Photographed in a controlled studio environment, these highly staged photographs seem to hover between sentimental and generic, organic and digital, beautiful and banal. Together, these works seem to question the significance and limits of human experience in an era of therapeutic and digital enhancement.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Continuing Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore's focus on bridging the arts between Australia and Asia, Trompe l’œil brings together six artists across Asia and Australia who seek to reimagine understandings and expectations of the everyday.

Dr. Mikala Tai has worked for the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival and Council of Fashion and Textile Industries, before being appointed as the Director of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in 2015. Her curatorial projects include Yang Yongliang: On the Quiet Water (2009) at 45 Downstairs, Melbourne; Divine Economy – Structures (2017) for Aicon Gallery, New York; and the critically acclaimed performance program for Art Central Hong Kong (2016 and 2017). Her interview contribution to Gillman Barracks X Ocula “Art-In-Sight” publication also extends her endeavours in strengthening ties between Australia and Asia.

GO SEE

06/04/2018

LIAM O'BRIENCocoonSVA at The Pfizer Building, New York19 April - 4 May 2018

MA Curatorial Practice at the School of Visual Arts New York presents Cocoon, curated by Lux Yuting Bai, an exhibition that inquires how one "becomes what one is" by examining the concepts of authenticity and absurdity in an existential framework.

Sullivan+Strumpf is delighted to participate in Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 with a presentation of works by Yang Yongliang, Alex Seton, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (Encounters Booth 3E10) Darren Sylvester, Lindy Lee and Gregory Hodge. Bringing together six artists with diverse practices in both two and three dimensions as well as new media, the presentation takes the pulse of contemporary visual art practice in the region.

Sullivan+Strumpf's presentation includes some of the region's most exciting artists and intriguing objects, including Alex Seton's, Clothing Bale 02 sculpted in Australian Wombeyan marble, part of a new series in which Seton draws on the second-hand clothing industry. Darren Sylvester's science-fiction-inspired oversize light jet print, Out of Life, features a model dressed in a 1970s mock space suit; the martian setting resonating with Lindy Lee's Horizons growing beyond the visible, a large-scale circular flung bronze sculpture. The virtual world of Yang Yongliang's VR work, Eternal Landscape, is influenced by ancient Chinese Song Dynasty paintings; the work's sense of a future-past providing a counterpoint to Gregory Hodge's acrylic paintings inspired by quotidian materials like carpet samples, but also the geology of the moon. Art Basel Hong Kong opens to the public on 29 March and continues until 31 March, we look forward to welcoming you to our presentation at booth 3C16.

ATTEND

For Art Basel Hong Kong 'Encounters' section curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran will present two monumental works which continue his exploration of the politics of sex, the monument, gender and religion. Nithiyendran's increasingly experimental practice foregrounds an intensive investigation of ceramic technique alongside an increasingly apparent conceptual underpinning. In particular, the potential of scale has been explored in monumental ceramic installations such as Mud Men (National Gallery of Australia, 2017). Recent presentations at Dhaka Art Summit, 2018; The National, Sydney, 2017; Kuandu Biennale, Taiwan, 2016; Adelaide Biennial, 2016; and the Ian Potter Museum in Melbourne, have firmly established Nithiyendran as the region’s most exciting emerging artist.

GO SEE

15/03/2018

SYDNEY BALL in 21st BIENNALE OF SYDNEYSuperposition: Equilibrium and EngagementArt Gallery of New South Wales16 March - 11 June 2018

It is with great pleasure that Sullivan+Strumpf announce the inclusion of the late Sydney Ball (1933-2017) in the 2018 Biennale of Sydney, Superposition: Equilibrium & Engagement. A pioneer in the field of painting and the development of abstraction in Australia, Sydney Ball's presentation in the 21st Biennale of Sydney marks forty-five years since his inclusion in its inaugural iteration in 1973, highlighting the level of Ball's continued relevance and influence on generations of contemporary artists. Included in the now iconic survey of abstraction, The Field, shown at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968, Ball's presentation at the Biennale of Sydney precedes an important restaging of that landmark exhibition which will open at the NGV this April.

Ball's work, Black Reveal (1968-69) from his Modular series will feature in the Art Gallery of New South Wales exhibition alongside the UK-based collaboration, Semiconductor. Black Reveal collapses the space between painting and sculpture, combining sections of shaped canvas painted in matte acrylic with plywood panels in gloss enamel. Accompanying this work, fourteen preparatory studies for the series and Ball's sketch book's from the 1960s and 1970s, will allow visitors to further penetrate Ball's thinking around form, light and the sculptural potential of colours.

Artistic Director Mami Kataoka explains that Superposition: Equilibrium & Engagement "examines the world today through the concept of 'superposition' a term that refers to an overlapping situation." The state of superposition can be applied to all conceptual levels, writes Kataoka, from different climates and cultures to "the meaning of abstraction" - a description pertinent to Sydney Ball's practice in which he explored abstraction to varying degrees over a six-decade-long career.

ANNOUNCEMENT

02/03/2018

LINDY LEEDivided Worlds: Adelaide Biennial of Australian ArtArt Gallery of South Australia3 March - 3 June 2018

It is with great pleasure that Sullivan+Strumpf announce the inclusion of Lindy Lee in the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Lee’s epic work ‘The Life of Stars,’ made with the assistance of Urban Art Projects, features at the entrance to the Art Gallery of South Australia and will welcome audiences into the Biennial. Curator Erica Green says, ‘the exhibition titled Divided Worlds, recognises that we live in troubled times. However, rather than foretelling conflict, my focus has been on assembling an exhibition that celebrates the enduring role of art and culture. Divided Worlds offers an opportunity to experience an alternative dimension – one where “difference” is the natural order of things, and a strength to be celebrated.’

UP NEXT

Sullivan+Strumpf is pleased to present Mercury, a major new body of paintings by Sam Leach. Leach's works are informed by art history, science and philosophy. He combines the poles of the metaphorical and the empirical, the analogous and the objective, in an ongoing investigation of the relationship between humans and animals. With a distanced, scientific approach, the artist draws connections between data visualisation techniques, semiotics, and formalist abstraction that results in a kind of reductive aesthetics.

"The Russian Cosmists believed in immortality and resurrection for all humanity. The ideas of Russian Cosmism, most famously formulated by Nikolai Fedorov in the late 19th Century included plans for technological development, including space travel, to achieve this goal of immortality. In the early 20th Century Fedorov's student, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, developed the mathematical equations and preliminary designs that were developed and applied to achieve the first human trips to space.

As the editorial of E-flux issue 88 pointed out, the humanist concern of Cosmism marks it as one of the threads of the englightenment. A thread which was cut short by stalin's purges. Since we now see a new era of space exploration in which private interests are funding and building the technology, it is timely to consider the origins of the project of space exploration. The aesthetics of the technology are determined largely, but not entirely, by function. It is this aspect of aesthetic choice in the design that interests me. I speculate that there is a connection between the legacy of the enlightenment found in the philosophy of the Russian Cosmists and the distinctive styles of spacesuits, helmets and associated technology. I want to draw a line connecting the constructed landscapes of the 17th and 18th Century, the utopian ideals of 20th Century formalist abstraction and the future implied by space exploration."

UP NEXT

Unity is an expansive new body of work developed by Tony Albert with Warakurna Artists over an eighteen month period of residencies and development. The resulting collaborative photographs and mixed media works are significant contemporary documents of artistic exchange and indigenous creative practices in present day Australia. Striking and bold in their inventive use of materials, Albert and his collaborators interrogate contemporary legacies of colonialism in a way that prompts the audience to contemplate elemental aspects of the human condition.

"I would like to acknowledge the families of Warakurna and the Ngaanyatjarr a Lands of Western Australian for hosting me so generously. Warakurna, a remote community situated 330 kilometres west of Uluru near the border of the Northern Territory, became home for a month. The township of approximately 180 people is nestled amongst the spectacular Rawlinson Ranges in the Gibson Desert." - Tony Albert, 2018

DON'T MISS

6600+ is an abstract representation by Sam Leach of Budj Bim as not only Australia’s earliest and largest aquaculture system but also as a cultural and sacred space that symbolises and celebrates the ingenuity and the ongoing Gunditjmara connection to land. The Gunditjmara have been tireless in their advocacy and ongoing commitment for recognition of the international significance of this remarkable site and we encourage everyone to learn from the rich traditions and history of Budj Bim as a significant story in the narrative of South Western Victoria.

FINAL DAY

COMING UP

fillet presents an extension of Habibi's ongoing series of assemblages titled This Thing, which explores notions from the ubiquity in urban life and the relationship society has with material culture. Habibi's inquiry takes on a formalist approach where elements and forms of common objects, such as a pool ladder or an indigo tinted window glass pane, are deconstructed and proportioned to create Habibi's distinguished style.

Using his own body as a reference for scale, the dimensions of the sculpture are tuned to create a composition that speaks to his viewers on a personal level, inciting individual interpretations and perceptions of not only the artist, but each viewer as well. Through Habibi's observations and inquiries into the spatial elements of his work, the shadows which form from his sculptures prompt a dialogue about the embodied relationship between the forms of his work and the specific spaces it inhibits.

瞧一瞧

Lindy Lee's major new public commission in Sydney's Chinatown, The Garden of Cloud and Stone, will be launched on Chinese New Year by Clover Moore, Lord Mayor of Sydney.

Working in collaboration with Jane Irwin Landscape Architecture and Hill Thalis Architecture, Lee and her team at Urban Art Projects have created a 'garden' featuring dramatic clouds floating over Thomas streets, bronze scholars' rocks, a pavement composed of flung bronze components, and a natural stone water feature.

In ancient Chinese philosophy, clouds are considered a sign of good fortune. They represent the union of yin and yang because they are a fusion of the elements of water and air, sky and earth. Stones are a Chinese symbol of longevity, linked to yang energy - energy that is alive and unchanged for an immeasurable amount of time.

READ

"A series of garish, in-your-face idols are causing a stir at the Dhaka Art Summit (DAS). The totemic mixed-media statues, by the Sri Lankan-born artist Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, are described on the wall text as 21st-century “deities in drag” but Nithiyendran points out that the works are multivalent, referencing numerous sources including Hinduism, a religion where “multi-gender idols are a paradigm”, he says (the internet, pornography and fashion are his other sources)."

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran's Idols was commisioned and produced by Artspace, Sydney and the Samdani Art Foundation for the Dhaka Art Summit 2018. The project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australian Council for the Arts, its funding and advisory body, and supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Culural Diplomacy Grants Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

ATTEND

An exhibition exploring the Budj Bim landscape in southwestern Victoria. Sacred to the Gunditjmara people, the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape includes a system of channels and weirs constructed from the local volcanic rock to manage water flows from nearby Lake Condah to exploit eels as a food source. The exhibition will feature a painting newly commissioned for the Warrnambool Art Gallery Collection, supported by the Robert Salzer Foundation and the Isobel and David Jones Family Foundation.

READ

'Part of the longing for zero is a desire for a feeling of freedom — no responsibility attached. We have so much responsibility in life, even as children … I wonder if animals, plants and birds have responsibilities. Through art I want to create a total sense of freedom. Zero.' - Hiromi Tango